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It’s not all black and white at the Royal Melbourne Dairy Show

There hasn’t been a lot of activity on the Milk Maid Marian dairy blog of late because we’ve taken a family mini-break centred around the Royal Melbourne Dairy Show. Held a week or so before the big public Royal Melbourne Show, this event is the opportunity for dairy breeders to strut their stuff.

What struck us as “commercial” dairy farmers rather than showies was the variety of cows and the sheer size of the Holsteins. Just take a look at this cow!

The guy handling the cow was not a midget

We also fell in love with a few gorgeous cows.

Young Illawarra cow – Australia’s own dairy breed

A gentle Guernsey called “Bling”

Beautiful Brown Swiss

Zoe with a dear little Jersey yearling

It’s a great reminder that even though 1.4 million of Australia’s 1.7 million dairy cows are Holsteins, there’s a whole kaleidoscope of cows out there.

Thanks Lisa! Guernseys – either pure or crossbred – are quite rare in commercial Australian dairy herds. Here’s what the Guernsey people say about them: http://www.lbcentre.com.au/Guernsey.php. Must find out more for my own benefit, I think!

The vast majority of dairy farms in the world use large tonnages of cereal or protein based feeds. So they are very exposed to price increases. The situation in North America is so serious that dairy cows are already being slaughtered as the farmers have run out of feed.